


chasing visions of our futures

by PrepareToBeMildlyEntertained



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: During Canon, During TRK, F/M, M/M, Minor Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Pre-Epilogue, The Raven King bonus scene, ronan lynch can actually be ok at feelings if you give him a goddamn chance, you can pry blue and ronan having an emotional conversation about adam from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 02:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13354605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrepareToBeMildlyEntertained/pseuds/PrepareToBeMildlyEntertained
Summary: “He looks back, you know,” she said, after a few moments of silence. In the living room, she could just make out Gansey and Adam, who was clearly agitated over whatever they were talking about. Ronan placed one of the clean plates next to the sink to dry and then clenched both of his hands on the edge of the counter.“Are you planning on making a point?” he said. Blue barely resisted rolling her eyes again.





	chasing visions of our futures

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Raven Cycle fic, but I couldn't resist. I love these kids too much. Also, Blue and Ronan's friendship means the world to me.
> 
> Title from Youth by Daughter

Ronan was perpetually looking to Adam over in the corner, which was not particularly out of character for him. He spent a lot of time looking at Adam, and Blue wondered if he knew how obvious the constant staring really was. Then again, considering her recent conversation with Adam, maybe Blue didn’t have room to complain about a lack of subtly. Maybe none of them could afford to be subtle anymore. 

The night was charged around them. It was a night, as Gansey had so forcefully declared, for truth.

Gansey and Adam talked together in the living room, an intense sort of hush surrounding them that left Blue feeling it would be wrong to intrude. Ronan filled up the large sink and dumped a significant amount of soap in before tossing in their dishes from dinner. 

Confrontation was both the only way to speak to Ronan and the way to ensure he would never tell her anything, but maybe they had reached the point where confrontation was the only way. Blue knew all too well how little time she might have left and how deeply that terrified her. She wanted every second to count, and denial wasn’t a place any of them could set up shop. If they continued on this way, Ronan would keep staring, Adam would keep throwing glances, and Blue would be overwhelmed with the urge to constantly roll her eyes.

“Are you ever planning on making a move?” she asked, apropos of nothing. Ronan stiffened and then turned to her with an intensely forced air of disdain.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Sargent.” Blue’s wound pulled painfully with the effort of raising a skeptical eyebrow. Ronan scowled and went back to putting dishes in the soapy water of the sink.

“So, you aren’t planning to tell him? Just hoping that staring will do the trick?” Ronan’s dish cleaning grew more violent, to the point that Blue worried he would sooner break a plate than scrub it. 

“Leave it,” Ronan finally muttered. Blue moved closer to him, a thing she would never have attempted months earlier, but now she recognized that Ronan’s rage was not necessarily because he was prone to attacking, but more because he often felt like a caged animal. She approached quietly and jumped to sit on the counter just next to Ronan, whose eyes remained determinedly trained on the dishes. He didn’t lash out, which was a good sign.

“He looks back, you know,” she said, after a few moments of silence. In the living room, she could just make out Gansey and Adam, who was clearly agitated over whatever they were talking about. Ronan placed one of the clean plates next to the sink to dry and then clenched both of his hands on the edge of the counter.

“Are you planning on making a point?” he said. Blue barely resisted rolling her eyes again.

“My point is: are you planning on doing something about it?” Ronan was silent, and Blue let him be. Ronan’s silences were impressive, but if Gansey and Adam could put up with them, she could too. It cheered her, recognizing how much better she understood him. The idea that she would know one Aglionby boy, let alone a whole group, well enough to attempt this conversation would at one point have sounded horrifying to her. But she knew there was a power now, in knowing. 

In being known.

In a move with a surprising amount of vulnerability, Ronan glanced over his shoulder to check that no one else was there. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Blue waited him out. Finally, he shoved himself free of the sink, turned around, and crossed his arms.

“For your information, Sargent,” he said, biting and carefully careless, “I did do something about it.” It was unexpected, and Blue easily recognized the signs of Ronan’s insecurity. He raised a hand up so he could chew absently on his leather bracelets and his eyes were in a constant state of movement. Anywhere but Blue, anywhere but Adam, anywhere but anywhere. A few rivulets of water dripped down his arms but he made no move to dry them off.

Blue cleared her throat. “Well,” she said. She cleared her throat again. “Um, and what came of that?” Knowing Ronan enough to wait out his defensiveness was one thing, actually talking to him once he admitted he had human feelings was another. This was uncharted territory. This was where one of them blew the other off, made an insulting comment, and went back to knowing they were friends without ever needing to talk about it.

And in any other circumstance, on any other night, maybe that was would have happened. But there was a reason none of them had laughed when Gansey called it a night for truth. Ronan had already laid himself so bare in front of all of them, maybe he hadn’t had time to build his wall all the way back to the top yet, and so his third huge confession of the night slipped out before he had time to pull it back.

“I kissed him,” he said softly. Ronan so rarely allowed himself to be soft, but these three little words were every ounce a mouse held up to his cheek to find the heartbeat. It was a Ronan rarely seen, and never heard. And Blue knew well enough to treat him with care. Before she could ask another question, Ronan said even more quietly, “He kissed me back.” 

“Was it… a nice kiss?” Blue asked after a beat. Ronan raised a pointed eyebrow in her direction and said nothing, but he continued to shift his weight back and forth on his feet. “What?” Blue demanded. “It’s not like I ever kissed him.” 

Ronan stopped chewing on his bracelets and turned his body more in Blue’s direction. His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t?”

“No? I don’t—oh,” Blue shifted and averted her eyes. “I don’t kiss people.” 

“You don’t kiss Dick?” Ronan said, then smirked viciously.

“That’s not even clever, that’s just easy,” Blue said. She kicked her feet a bit and pointedly didn’t look into the living room. She felt she had a clearer idea, now, what Adam would have wanted to talk to Gansey about. She hoped Gansey wasn’t making an ass of himself.

“So,” Ronan said after a minute, smirk mostly gone. “You don’t kiss anyone?”

“…I have this curse.”

“Metal, dude,” Ronan said. Blue huffed humorlessly. Ronan had been inclined to call Blue’s frustrations and faults out as positive attributes lately, and she found that she didn’t entirely hate it. Not that his fist bumps and appreciative looks actually made any of the situations better, but having the reassurance that Ronan of all people was on her side was probably more of a comfort than it should have been. After all these months, she still had a lingering and frustrating urge to impress him. 

“Basically, I’ve been told that if I kiss my true love, he’ll die. So I don’t kiss people.” She glanced at Ronan. “So I never kissed Adam, and I don’t kiss Gansey.” Ronan made what he probably thought was a valiant attempt not to look pleased by this information. 

“Sorry you’re fucked for kissing,” he said. Blue rolled her eyes. Despite the vulgar wording, Ronan seemed sincere in his consolation. Ronan’s honesty was there, as he so often claimed; you just had to know where to look. Even if he drowned every word in sarcasm and defensiveness, he meant what he said and Blue appreciated that more deeply than she ever could have explained. Humor was how she dealt with most terrible things in her life, anyway. Obfuscation, even through different means, was something she and Ronan both excelled at.

“What happened after you kissed him?” Blue asked. The question somehow riled and tamed Ronan simultaneously. He was a snarling beast, he was a blushing teenager. He shrank in on himself, he grew to ten feet tall. Blue would have teased him if it wasn’t so endearing. 

“He didn’t say anything, so I came back down here,” Ronan said. “I talked to a miniature human for a while.” 

“And what did Orphan Girl have to say about the situation?” Ronan laughed, with more feeling this time.  
“I don’t know if we get to count Orphan Girl as human.” Blue conceded the point with a tilt of her head. In the living room, Adam and Gansey stared out the window. Blue couldn’t tell if they were talking anymore, or if they had simply lapsed into a comfortable silence. 

“I think he just needs time,” Blue said. “He overthinks. Everything. All the time. But he also clearly cares about you.” Ronan didn’t say anything, but he seemed all around more settled in his own skin as he absorbed her words. He didn’t move to chew on his bracelets, and his eyes found places to focus on. 

“You aren’t the worst, Sargent,” Ronan said. Blue held a hand to her heart, her tone mocking even as she smiled internally at the sentiment.

“You old sap.”

In a flash he had turned around to the sink and splashed her heavily with soapy water, mischievous grin pinned to his face. Blue made an indignant sound that Ronan only laughed at, then made her own move for the water. They were both soaked in minutes, alternatively laughing and snarling. 

Hours later, Blue and Gansey left the Barns behind them, Ronan lurking on the porch while Adam wandered around somewhere inside. Gansey’s hand found hers across the front seat and she held on viciously, fiercely, refusing to believe she would ever not be able to hold Gansey’s hand.

“You’re still soaked,” he said after a mile driven in silence. He was her favorite Gansey, in that moment in that car in that night. He was alive and present, ready to forge forward. The light in his eyes burned with such intensity Blue believed the night might melt into day if he commanded it to.

“A small price to pay for getting Ronan to speak in long sentences.” Gansey glanced her way, curiosity playing in those bright eyes, but made no attempt to ask what it was Ronan had been talking about. Always so careful to stay within bounds, to not upset his friends. They drove on.

Blue hoped that Ronan talked to Adam. She hoped that Adam got out of his own head long enough to see that the world wasn’t a math problem, and Ronan wasn’t an equation to be solved. She hoped they got to kiss more and that they knew to hold on viciously, fiercely to each other. 

“What are you thinking about?” Gansey asked later, when they were nearly to 300 Fox Way.

“Magic. People.” He rubbed his thumb gently over the back of her hand and she shivered. They pulled up outside the house she had called home her entire life, most of the lights still on despite the fact that there was almost no one inside. He released her hand and ran a finger along her cheek, the open affection in his face overwhelming.

“You know, in my experience,” he said. “Those are one in the same.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
